Learning Forward's Standards for Professional Learning define and describe professional learning that leads to improved educator practices, leadership, and student outcomes. Standards draw on the latest evidence and research about what works in professional learning to help educators implement every phase of the professional learning process. They…

In this paper, environmental and geographical subject expertise is explored, based on the notion of expertise as rooted both in subject knowledge and knowledge of teaching and as acquired through experience. The research questions that guided this study focused on the importance of understanding how teachers negotiate their assumptions and what…

As online learning is becoming more deeply entrenched in higher education, many institutions are designing professional development activities aimed at helping faculty improve their online teaching. The focus of this descriptive study was on identifying the preferences faculty who teach online have regarding how they want to learn about new…

We were concerned about teaching a stand-alone technology integration course while advocating that teachers employ full integration. Our college moved to a tech-infusion model whereby our educational technology curriculum would be incorporated in methods courses. Using a qualitative approach, we documented experiences of teacher educators who were…

Background: Despite increased access to student learning data, scholars have demonstrated that teachers do not always know how to use these data in ways that lead to deep changes in instruction and often lack skills and knowledge to interpret results and develop solutions. In response, administrators have invested in instructional coaches, data…

We approach the recent argument put in this journal that teaching assistants (TAs) should be more strongly trained, monitored and supervised when teaching on intervention programmes. We suggest that the argument sits uneasily with wider management and educational literature. We examine TAs' experience of delivering important intervention…

One objective of the U.S. Department of Education's (ED) School Improvement Grants (SIG) and Race to the Top (RTT) program is to help states enhance their capacity to support the turnaround of low-performing schools. This capacity may be important, given how difficult it is to produce substantial and sustained achievement gains in low-performing…

Although scholarship and research have demonstrated the positive impact of professional learning on academic teaching and learning, an inadequate amount of research has examined how professional learning is associated with transformative teaching for equity, diversity and social justice. This survey study explored the relationship between…

This paper explores the developing concept of expertise, taking the Dreyfus and Dreyfus staged model as its starting point. It analyses criticism of the Dreyfus model and considers more recent attempts to resolve the tensions implicit within it. The authors go on to suggest ways some of the later modifications can be improved. The traditional…

Many teachers say that they do "assessment for learning" (AfL), but often their assessment practice does not really reflect the intentions and principles that make AfL powerful. Teachers who understand the "spirit" as well as the "letter" of AfL are continually building their expertise so that they can carefully apply…

As a growing body of evidence links school success and early mathematical experiences, there is increasing interest in offering young children opportunities to bridge their informal understanding of mathematics with more formal concepts and processes. At the same time, many teachers and caregivers in the early care and education (ECE) field may…

This study analyzed coaching conversations and interviews of four coach/teacher partnerships for specific ways in which kindergarten and first-grade teachers, and coaches, conceptualized instructional scaffolding for guided reading. Interview transcripts were coded for coaches' and teachers' specific hypotheses/ ideas regarding instructional…

General education teachers have limited opportunities for professional learning that is designed to develop their capacity to differentiate curriculum and instruction adequately for gifted students. Administrators' decisions related to professional learning for general education teachers in gifted education are influenced by many factors. This…

Although scholarship demonstrates the value and need for teaching grounded in equity, diversity and social justice, little research has explored the relationship between transformative professional development and transformative teaching. This survey research study conducted in 25 US diverse elementary schools investigated statistical…

Although successful integration of technology into classrooms has proven beneficial to the learning process, little is yet known about how teachers respond to the introduction of technology and why some choose to use it while others do not. Using Sandoltz' stages of teacher technology adoption as a framework, this multiple case study utilized…